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Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Moral Humility

Since it's the 4th of July, a time to stop and think about what it means to be an American, I wanted to pause from my normal writing about art, life and spirit and talk about the political environment of our country.

This started this morning with wanting to post the video, "Born Again American," which is a wonderfully uplifting and touching song with a strong message about the current state of our country. I highly recommend the video.

And, I'd also like to recommend a TED Talk with psychologist Jonathan Haidt who has done a lot of study about differences between liberals and conservatives. It's interesting that the differences between the two groups on five basic value scales tend to be the same all around the world. The five value scales are:

harm/care

fairness/reciprocity

ingroup loyalty

authority/respective

purity/sanctity

Haidt's basic point is that we need both views and that it requires moral humility to understand that neither view is "wrong" and together we make a smarter country, a smarter world.